Talk:Gordonstoun/Archive 1

Archive 1

2005 to 2006

Idi Amin at Gordonstoun? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.68.158.178 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 7 September 2003

Ridiculous - he never went there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.216.117 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 24 March 2005

My fact checking fails me. Fact checking assistance requested as I think there's an error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.68.158.178 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 7 September 2003

Are you the individual that removed the comments about Prince Charles at Gordonstoun? If you are, perhaps you would do me the courtesy of explaining why? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.178.216.117 (talk • contribs) 21:51, 24 March 2005

"In Gordonstoun Hahn introduced many German educational traditions." Such as? Could someone explain? I attended Gordonstoun for five years and was not aware of any. Also, the name of Gordonstoun School is, not surprisingly, "Gordonstoun School", so what is meant by the claim that Hahn named it after Salem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.198.250.3 (talk • contribs) 12:04, 23 March 2006

I dont know what is meant by that, when i was there i never heard anything other than Gordonstoun School being used.-Eduardo Rivero 22:30, 18 May 2006

changed 'sometimes referred to as a public school' to 'often 17:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)~', as this is the case. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.111.240.112 (talk • contribs)

Original assessment

Very impressive Alumni. Needs significant expansion with referenced material. Could also use some reorganization, pictures, and an infobox. Adam McCormick 06:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How is "Gordonstoun" pronounced? "Gordon's Town"? "Gordon-stone"? Or something else? Hugo S. Cunningham —Preceding comment was added at 21:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

It's pronounced Gordonstoon, ie, with the last syllable rhyming with spoon. Dahliarose 08:34, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, I've only ever heard people pronounce it "Gordon-stun". Could just be an English pronunciation though. I agree the article needs and deserves to be improved. Anybody wanting to collaborate in some way? RudolfSchmidt 02:25, 26 April 2008 (GMT)

the "stoon" pronunciation is an alternative pronunciation used mainly by Scottish people or ignorant English people who only know it as prince Charles's school and assume that students are woken at 5am with enforced cold showers and then made to run several miles before breakfast and two hours of chapel. at the school itself, everyone uses the "stun" pronunciation. using the other identifies you either as a local Scot who doesn't know/care much about it or just another ignorant Englishman. Machete97 (talk) 22:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The correct pronunciation is Gordon-stun, with a very weak "u". However, there is an abbreviation, often used by OGs, staff and ex-staff, which is "Stoon" (without the "Gordon"). User Machete97 is completely correct in deeming the pronunciation "Gordon-stoon" wrong but misses the point about the abbreviated version. It is, of course, nothing to do with being English or Scottish. Slhuyton (talk) 15:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Reassess

• Gordonstoun. Following a review by the assessment team this article has been promoted to top importance because of the royal alumni (six members of the current British royal family including the future king), its international reputation and its unique ethos. It already has articles in four foreign-language Wikis. It is almost a B but a little more content and a few more references are required. References are in particular needed for the royal alumni claims (ideally the references should go in the articles on the people themselves) and for all claims to fame and international importance. Dahliarose 11:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Making the article better

I've started to create a more detailed article of gordonstoun under a different URL attached to my account with the intention of copying and pasting the completed whole when its finished. I'm not going to completely change whats in the existing article so that the original creator won't have done their bit in vain, but anything that hasn't been properly reference that I can't find a reference for will have to go. I've looked online but alot of info tends to be news reports about whats happened recently which means properly referencing things like the history and education without constantly getting it from the gordonstoun website will be hard. But I have taken out a couple of books, the only two my university library had, and hopefully I'll be able to get more info from them. I think I'll have it done in the next week or so but I've got exams soon so might have to delay it. If anybody was wanting to edit the article aswell then i'm happy to collaborate. RudolfSchmidt (talk) 00:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

George Oliver

the link to george oliver in the alumni section leads to a disamb page, with three george olivers, none of which were at school age when the school was open (one is american and predates it entirely). was this an intended redlink which has ended up leading to a disamb ? if so then can someone stub the relevant george oliver and direct link to him rather than the disamb. Machete97 (talk) 22:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, re: the link and my main user page! I have set about trying to improve this page and I will make sure that any errors or problems get sorted out but I'm sitting exams at the moment and I'm afraid everything else has been put on hold, but my last exam is this coming tuesday (hurray!) and i'll be back on the case as soon as. To be honest that whole section is badly cited and I presume that a lot of the unverifiable alumni will have to be removed anyway. Oh and by the way, hadn't noticed before but the edit you've made has been undone by Coolhandscot, please don't redo the edit as your comment 'This reputation is retained in modern times, when is is definitely undeserved.', as well as having a typo, is actually just a matter of opinion, and although it may be an opinion held by many it still doesn't mean it can be added to the article. It still needs to read like an encyclopedia and so that's why it was removed. If you want to learn more about this then try this tutorial page, it helps me when I get stuck. I don't mean to sound authoritative or angry, its just that the page has seen some random 'vandalism' in the past month and i'm trying to prevent some sort of edit war from occuring. RudolfSchmidt (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

(84.71.86.126 was me - on a different comp forgot to login) on second thoughts that was a bad edit. my exams finish on 23rd june so after that i'd like to collab with you on your rewrite of the article. Machete97 (talk) 12:27, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou! I have put a lot of work in and I'm almost done, but it would be good to hear someone else's opinion on what to put in and also on what I've done so far before I add it to the page. Its really hard to rewrite the article especially with the amount of additions I've done, and not get carried away with writing things, so would be good to get an outside view to see where I've maybe gone over the top or added a paragraph that's not really needed. Rudy 16:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Messy talk page

On a different subject, i was thinking about deleting the early comments on the talk page, especially those that seem to be random people chatting and those that aren't signed. I don't mind keeping the ones that discuss the pronunciation of Gordonstoun much, but it would be good to have them under a common title. Any objections/thoughts? Considering the risk that it could just be me active on this page and therefore making this whole post a soliloquy, I'll wait a week or so and if there are no objections I'll go ahead and make the changes. RudolfSchmidt (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

we should sign the comments using these, or in the case of " Hi Ranolf,from GGS, also hi to that guy that was in cuthy that left us for this school. you traitor!" just delete them. I've added a heading to the discussion on pronounciation - and substituted my IP with my username on my old comments. Machete97 (talk) 12:27, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Done. Rudy 17:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Nominations

I've made some changes to the article and nominated it for GA status as well as nominating it to be used as a Did You Know? hook on the front page. If you're a user interested in reviewing the GA nom then use the link at the top of the page, but as there is a time limit if someone would review the DYK Hook then I'd be grateful. Rudy 10:08, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Both have now been taken care of. Rudy 12:26, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Reads like an advertisement

Large sections of this article read like an advertisement for the school. I'd never support it being a featured article in this condition. Wembwandt (talk) 08:52, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realise it had been nominated as a featured article, I agree, I don't think it's anywhere near FA standard. I'm doing my best to get it up to GA standard though and I'm going to try and address any of the issues raised above. Rudy 15:57, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I second these comments. I have noticed with various private schools that there is a tendency for staff and pupils to write favourable comments and trivia about the school. Whenever I read comments along the lines of "the school seeks to instil a spirit of self-reliance and leadership in its pupils", I reach for the sick bag. Most of the stuff about Gordonstoun in the papers here, when not mentioning the English royal family is really about sex, 'n' drugs 'n' bullying, which is maybe a bit unfair, but that's how it goes.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC) p.s. I also question if User:RudolfSchmidt has conflict of interest here - check out his edit history.

I think your opinion is a little harsh, I agree it's obvious that some of my edits have included favourable comments but for the most part it was unintentional and is easily corrected which I'm going to try and start doing now. It's a bit dramatic to say it almost makes you sick. How else does an article progress than for those interested or even involved in the subject to make edits to it. I've been making edits to this page for more than two years and you're the first person to suggest that I have been conflicted or suggested that I may have an ulterior motive to promote the school rather than create a good wikipedia article. It would have been more helpful to give me some pointers as to the mistakes I've made, rather than placing a 'written like an advertisement banner', when I've posted several times that I was going to correct it, and then just unconstructively criticising what has taken hours of work to do. Rudy 14:05, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Rudy, I have read plenty of articles on Wikipedia about various private schools and they're often pretty bad. I tend to edit the Scottish ones, simply because I know something about them. Loretto School starts off pretty well, and then goes in for three paragraphs of eulogy. Rannoch School is better, since it has closed, and has nothing to sell, but even so I had to remove part of a sentence about how the school had been converted to holiday lets which are "an ideal Highland retreat". That kind of thing doesn't belong here. I know how many of these schools operate, the tricks that they have (scholarships for intelligent poorer people to boost their exam past rates), tokenistic charity work to justify their status etc.

I also think many of these schools have an anti-Scottish agenda, which is best exemplified by their contempt for the Scottish education system (or the fact that they were the driving force in replacing shinty with field hockey in this country). They wouldn't always admit to it, but it's there. It's also why they make a big song and dance about the royals but not the fact that a former pupil wrote Flower of Scotland which has more or less been adopted as the national anthem.

By the way, when I used the phrase "Conflict of Interest" I did not intend to insult you. I did not mean you are a "conflicted" individual, but that your presumed relationship with Gordonstoun as a pupil or staff makes you a biased editor.--MacRusgail (talk) 14:05, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Assessment 3

I am re-assessing this article for WikiProject Schools, by maintaining the Top-importance rating and raising the quality rating to B-class. The lead is a decent length though it is a little promotional, particularly the third paragraph. The history section is good though the second paragraph is a little long and there is not much on between the 1950s and 2000s. The academic curriculum section reads as rather promotional again. Words like "strong" should be avoided as they are peacock terms. Avoid details that are only of limited interest, for instance are the football results really needed? Furthermore, recentism is an issue here i.e. if 2009/10 results are included, shouldn't every year should be included? There does seem to be an overuse of bold in the activities section and elsewhere, bear in mind WP:MOSBOLD. There is a lot of detail in the boarding houses and not all of it appears to be sourced, and sweeping statements such as "a lot of pride and loyalty can be associated with one's house" should probably be avoided. There should possibly be a separate article listing all notable alumni, as there are probably lots of them, with a summary left in the main article. The See also section states "Gordonstoun's home during the war" - which war? The notes section is good though it should possibly be itself sourced. Overall, this article has faults though it has the breadth and sourcing to justify B-class. Camaron · Christopher · talk 13:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the assessment, I will try and see to it all. I've got exams at the moment though so it'll probably be until the end of May before I start editing again. I understand it reads as an advertisement, but I want the article to be unbiased so I will try to fix it. The sports results was something that I played around with as an idea, the problem is that I've not been able to find that many stats though to do a complete work up, so I agree that it looks a little pointless. I'll try and get more info about it to beef it up, if I can't then I'll remove it. There are some notable alumni, but I don't know if it is extensive enough to constitute creating a separate article for it. There used to be a list on the page which I removed because it wasn't cited and because I wanted to focus on the article in general before getting to it. From the list only a dozen or so were of particular importance with the rest tending to be either relatives of famous people rather than being famous in their own right, or just really obscure. Rudy 14:18, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Spruce up

I've been through and tidied the article up quite a bit, re formatting and removing dozens of frankly silly wikilinks - hopefully it's all a bit tighter now, Brookie :) - he's in the building somewhere! ^(Whisper...) 11:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

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Mention of “The Crown” in the lead.

While I understand The Crown is quite a popular and may be the reason why some readers end up here at this article, it does seem a bit WP:UNDUE to mention it in the lead. — Marchjuly (talk) 10:39, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Not a public school

This doesn't qualify as a public school. It is in Scotland (where this term is not used in this sense traditionally.) It does not qualify in terms of its foundation date or legal status. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.205.241.133 (talk) 15:09, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Patron of the GA

The patron of the GA, according to this article and the school website, is the Duke of Edinburgh. Looks as if both need amending! Mdrb55 (talk) 22:43, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Deprecated sources

I've removed one deprecated source, The Scottish Sun. There may be others. Specifically, directly reports on story origially published in The Sun with no indication that The Times fact checked the claims by speaking to the annonymous sources.

Pug of the day (talk) 13:22, 17 May 2021 (UTC)